Tag: Michelle Rodriguez

fast x – marketing recap

How Universal Pictures has sold the latest in a massively-ridiculous franchise

Fast X movie poster from Universal Pictures
Fast X movie poster from Universal Pictures

Before we begin recapping the marketing campaign for this week’s big new theatrical release it once more needs to be stipulated that, with the exception of Hobbs & Shaw, I’ve not seen any of the Fast and/or Furious films. A scene here and there has crossed my radar but that’s about it. And I’m doing just fine.

With that out of the way, we’re here to look at the campaign for Fast X, the latest film in the series that’s now been going on for 22 years, five more than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Once more the story that began with a bunch of street racers sidelining as thieves hawking stolen DVD plays grows more outrageous, this time with those drivers getting involved in international espionage after being blamed for an explosion at the Vatican. Of course the theme of the story is about family and what it means to be in one, whether because of blood or friendship.

Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, John Cena and others from the earlier movies return along with newcomers Brie Larson, Scott Eastwood and Jason Momoa, the latter playing the film’s villain who bears a personal grudge against Diesel’s Dom.

Dan Mazeau and Justin Lin wrote the screenplay and Louis Leterrier directed, so let’s fire up the nitrous and take a look at how it’s been sold.

announcement and casting

Everyone knew the movie was happening – Lin and others even commented on it during the F9 marketing and publicity – but it wasn’t until August 2021 when Universal officially gave it a release date.

In mid-April Universal announced the beginning of production on the film and revealed the official title, one that was met with lots of gags about the treatment’s similarity to both the X-Men movies and to things like Jason X as well as the franchise’s inability to stick with a cohesive numbering scheme.

Larson joined the cast in early April and Momoa later that month.

Those additions were followed by a subtraction as Lin exited the film in late April, reportedly over creative conflicts with Diesel. Leterrier was named the new director a week or so later, picking up a production that was already halfway complete.

The casting of both Eastwood and Moreno came in May 2022. A month later it was among the movies Universal talked up to attendees of CineEurope. Perry joined the film in January.

Rodriguez talked about the impact Leterrier had when he joined the production and Momoa commented on joining the series while he was promoting “See” last year.

the marketing campaign: first gear

At the end of this past January a poster dropped promising audiences “The end of the road begins” while showing Dom clutching a rosary. That copy indicates this installment is *almost* the last in the series but that we’re only really at the start of the last chapter.

That was followed by a series of videos with highlights from the first nine movies, all meant to show how the story has been building to this point and how it really is all about family.

The ensemble cast of the film was shown off in a video where they all get out of a race car and look very serious.

The trailer (38m YouTube plays) was finally released, but in usual franchise fashion it wasn’t just dropped willy-nilly online but introduced at a massive event in Los Angeles in early February. In the trailer itself we see that Reyes (Momoa) is coming after Dom and his crew because he wronged him years ago and is seeking revenge. Other highlights include:

  • Dom smashing two helicopters behind him after he launches his car out of a transport plane
  • Jakob (Cena) firing missiles out of two launchers crudely attached to the sides of his car
  • Reyes not being able to look at anyone unless his head is tilted down so he has to look out the tops of his eyes
  • Flashback footage from earlier films with the late Paul Walker’s Brian O’Conner working with Dom

There were lots of interviews and such from that trailer event, including Leterrier talking about the harried circumstances under which he joined the film halfway through.

A commercial that aired during the Super Bowl broadcast shortly after that cut the trailer down to its most essential elements. Right around the same time Diesel appeared at the NBA All Star Draft to open the event and hype up the movie.

The theatrical poster released in mid-March puts Dom at the center of a collage of all the characters, cars and locations, all of which is framed within a big “X”.

There was a very short featurette that has Diesel and everyone else talking about coming together once again and how it’s really all about family.

TV spots began airing in earnest (the only time that word can be used when discussing these movies) in early April, continuing to pull out some of the biggest sequences to highlight while also offering time for Dom to brood and sound solemn. There was one specifically for the NBA Playoffs featuring Bronny James, a good chance to once more stress the importance of family.

Another featurette has everyone involved talking about how this one ups the ante on all fronts even more than the previous installments and how great it was to have some of the new faces around.

The studio sponsored livestreams of performances from Coachella in mid-April.

the marketing campaign: second gear

With a month to go before the movie came out, a couple rounds of character posters had each of the major players staring out over the top of a steering wheel.

The second trailer (28m YouTube plays) features a bit more story than the first, opening with Reyes framing them for a massive bomb that rolls through Vatican City before going off. Dom then has to assemble lots of his current and former compatriots to help save his son who’s been kidnapped and clear their name.

Momoa and others give the audience some background on who Dante Reyes is, as well as why Momoa wanted to join the franchise, in a featurette.

Universal showed off the movie during its CinemaCon presentation at the end of April, with Diesel and others from the cast appearing on stage to talk about their love not only for this series but also the theaters it will be shown in.

We get a recap of the relationship between Dom and Letty as yet another setup for the stakes of this movie’s story.

Additional featurettes cover the father/son dynamic between Dom and his son “Little B”, shooting those key sequences in Rome, more about filming in Rome, the additions of Cena and Larson, the process of filming the fistfight between Letty and Cipher (Charlize Theron) and how the “ball bomb rolls through Rome” footage was mapped out and shot.

More sports-related promotions came in early May as Diesel and Rodriguez made an appearance at a Formula 1 race in Miami and those watching the Kentucky Derby on NBC or Peacock got a look at exclusive footage from the film.

An extended “final” trailer (7m YouTube plays) came out just earlier this week, pretty much compiling lots of the footage we’ve previously seen in trailers, TV spots, clips and other media.

Everyone turned out for the premiere, held appropriately in Rome. That kicked off the international media tour with additional stops in Mexico, New Zealand and elsewhere before concluding in L.A., where Ludacris was joined by some of his costars at his Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony.

At the Rome event Diesel hinted that this was just the first in a two-part story to be concluded in the 11th film in a couple years, though the director and studio have been more vague about those plans.

There were also a bevy of stories about the whirlwind process of Leterrier coming on as director, something that apparently went from “inquiry” to “he’s landing and on his way to the set” in a matter of hours. He was also interviewed about securing some of the cameos seen in the film and more.

overall

The $60 million projected for the movie’s domestic opening weekend is overshadowed by the $280 million it’s expected to bring in globally, showing that this campaign hasn’t changed many minds or done much to attract new interest here in the U.S. but it has successfully triggered awareness overseas, and that’s what really matters.

From the moment it kicked off, the marketing has been all

And there’s plenty here about the cars and how the focus is still on characters wanting to

But really, isn’t it all about

dungeons & dragons: honor among thieves – marketing recap

How Paramount has sold its adaptation of the popular roleplaying game

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie poster from Paramount Pictures shows the heroes looking down at the camera as if they're inspecting a treasure they've uncovered.
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie poster from Paramount Pictures

Does the stigma or stereotype around playing Dungeons & Dragons still exist? The game, popular now for decades, was recently featured in “Stranger Things” as the thing that made certain kids in the neighborhood weird or suspect as media portrayed it as a gateway to Satanism and violence, but that was back when non-conformity to the 1980s Yuppie ideal was a sure sign you were about to go off the deep end.

Things have certainly shifted and the game now more accepted as a harmless way to spend an engaging few hours. At least that’s the assumption one can draw given it’s been adapted into the new feature film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

The movie has a familiar story outline: A ragtag bunch of misfits must get over their problems and issues in order to work together and retrieve a McGuffin before it can be used by evil forces to enslave people/cause damage/end the world.

In this case, that ragtag group of heroes is made up bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez), paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page), sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and druid Doric (Sophia Lillis), each one filling the role of a character type frequently used in the game. Hugh Grant also stars as Forge Fitzwilliam, the rogue who has been keeping Darvis’ daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) captive and who seeks a relic for reasons. Finally, Daisy Head plays Sofina, the Red Wizard who’s the ultimate big bad of the story.

Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley directed the film and wrote the screenplay along with Michael Grillo, so let’s roll the dice and set out on our quest of recapping the marketing campaign Paramount Pictures has run.

announcements and casting

A D&D movie has been in the works for about a decade, first at Warner Bros. until rights-holder Hasbro sued to shut them down and set it up at Universal, where it was developed by various folks, including Joe Manganiello and Dwayne Johnson. It was eventually moved over to Paramount, which brought on Daley and Goldstein after they left The Flash at WB.

Pine was named as the lead when the film was officially announced by Paramount in December, 2020. Rodriguez and others joined in early 2021

The studio revealed the official title of the film and a release date in April 2022.

the marketing campaign: 2022

A couple months later Paramount kicked off the marketing in a big way at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, where the cast and crew took part in what turned out to be the first in-person Hall H panel since the convention was canceled or moved online-only two years prior.

There was also an immersive experience set up at SDCC featuring a recreation of a tavern from the movie where attendees could take part in a 20-minute session that included exclusive footage, unique drinks and other opportunities to either take something back home (free or purchased) or create a moment worth sharing online and with others.

After being shown off at the panel the first poster and trailer were released online to the general public.

The poster is pretty basic but also kind of fun, showing silhouettes of the main heroes against the fiery dragon logo.

The trailer (19.1m YouTube plays) starts with Darvis explaining that he and his group of professional thieves made a huge mistake by stealing an item that has now been used to unleash a great evil on the world. So it’s up to them to rally and fix things. That’s about all you need to know as the main purpose here is to communicate the big visuals and fun attitude of the movie.

A look at the SDCC Tavern experience was released as the convention was ending.

Page appeared on “The Tonight Show” to start press promotion of the film while he was on the West Coast.

A short while later Paramount took the trailer to a mass of screens at the Gamers8 eSports tournament in Saudi Arabia to reach the very targeted audience there. Footage and more was also brought to Lucca Comics & Games, a genre convention held in Lucca, Italy and MCM Comic Con in London over the next couple months.

Most of the cast and crew visited Brazil Comic-Con in December 2022 for a Q&A panel and to show off footage and otherwise get attendees excited.

An AR lens for the various Meta social platforms was launched that let you choose your character type and have that costume overlaid on your camera.

At about the same time a new poster was released that arrays the characters in the usual way, all centered and brandishing their weapon or item of choice, the heroes in front and the bad guys toward the back while a dragon flies over a village.

A featurette also came out in conjunction with CCXP that has the cast talking about how big and fun the movie is while showing off some of the story points as well as the practical effects featured in it.

One more poster shows the heroes – as well as Forge – all looking down at the camera as if they’re inspecting a treasure they’ve just uncovered.

the marketing campaign: 2023

As the calendar turned over to 2023, Paramount announced the film’s world premiere was scheduled to happen at SXSW in March as that festival’s opening night feature.

Another trailer (13m YouTube plays) came out in early February, accompanied by a TV spot that aired during the Super Bowl broadcast. After opening by showing how Kilgore is the much better fighter than Darvis we get the same basic story outline as before as well as more of the dynamic between the characters and what drives them to action.

The studio also ran a #superb_owlbearparty in conjunction with several streaming influencers who offered new footage from the film and more, all centered around the owlbear, one of the movie’s magical creatures that had become very popular by this time.

A series of character posters released at the same time show each one in close up, basically just lifting the photo (or one very similar to it) from the theatrical poster.

it’s the owlbear’s world, we’re just living in it

Even the owlbear got its own one-sheet.

The first clip came out later in February showing the team of thieves reviving a corpse in order to ask it some questions and tell them what they need to know for their quest.

We meet the creatures, including our owlbear friend, in a short featurette hosted by the cast.

The owlbear even made it into a Snickers commercial.

back to the marketing…

Pine and Rodriguez promoted the movie in an appearance during the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards. Rodriguez also stopped by “The Talk” to talk about the film.

A feature profile of Daley and Goldstein focused on how the two have worked together for a decade now and how this movie is a combination of the comedy and other genres they’ve bounced between in that time.

More character posters came out in early March, around the same time Paramount partnered with more online influencers for a cosplay contest, YouTube “corpse Q&A” and other initiatives to reach the audiences of those individuals.

Another short featurette introduces us to the various characters and what they can do.

The heroes are running very quickly away from a massive dragon on the next poster.

Tame Impala released “Wings of Time”, a new song from the film’s soundtrack.

The SXSW premiere generated a huge amount of positive reviews, with many calling out the fun sense of adventure that permeates the story along with the fact that you don’t need to be a hardcore roleplaying aficionado to enjoy it.

As SWSW was winding down news came Paramount was partnering with Amazon to allow Prime members to attend exclusive screenings around the country two weeks prior to the film’s release.

The next clip shows the team as one of many taking part in Forge’s life-or-death games that involve them navigating a maze filled with magical, deadly beasts.

One of those beasts is featured on the IMAX poster. There were also one-sheets for screenx, Dolby and D-Box.

Additional talk show appearances included Page and Grant on “The Late Show”, Pine on “Kimmel”, Grant on “The View” and more.

Smith and Rodriguez appear in character in an Old Spice commercial where the company’s products are the treasure they’ve been questing for.

A partnership with Fortnite let players cast spells and more in a movie-themed adventure.

Lays also ran co-branded TV spots featuring lots of movie footage, apparently taking advantage of potatoes being Kilgore’s favorite food.

The cast provide another overview of the story while assuring audiences you don’t need to be steeped in D&D lore in a short video.

One more short trailer included lots of action and humor along with some positive critics quotes from early reviews of the movie.

The NBA’s Mac MccLung appears in a TV spot where he dodges some of the movie’s magical beasts on the court, inventing what he calls “dunkin’ and dragons.”

The global press tour included stops in Berlin, Paris and London before arriving back in Los Angeles for the U.S. premiere red carpet where the cast and crew talked about the humor of the story, the fun they had while making it and more. Mexico City was also visited later on.

While Daley had frequently talked about his time on “Freaks and Geeks” being what introduced him to the world of D&D, all that came truly full circle in a video posted just the other day where he reunites with his “F&G” castmates Samm Levine and Martin Starr. The three are still playing D&D 23 years later and have let time get away from them before Daley throws out the idea that someone should make a movie about it, something the other two quickly dismiss before he says at the end “It won’t.” It’s perfect.

overall

There are a handful of tactics, themes and messages that become clear looking at the campaign from beginning to end:

That ending is perfect: Having Daley recreate a “F&G” scene with Starr and Levine is [chef’s kiss] because it’s the first thing so many people thought of as soon as they learned he was involved in the movie. And it’s that much better because they saved it to the end so as not to underline the connection too overtly.

Chris Pine plays a lute: I lost track of how many times the marketing team used this GIF, which may wind up being the movie’s single greatest contribution to popular culture.

Chris Pine GIF by Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves - Find & Share on GIPHY

Hugh Grant goes full Harrison Ford: Every campaign for a franchise should have at least one star who has no idea what he’s taken part in, has no patience to discuss the endless mythology of the brand and is charmingly grumpy to the press yet turns in a fantastic performance and is beloved by the cast. Grant fills that role here and honestly, him making double entendres about D&D terminology increases my desire to see the movie significantly.

Michelle Rodriguez is funny: I’ve never seen her be this loose and fun in interviews and videos and honestly why can’t she be cast in more comedies and why is she always in movies where all she’s asked to do is scowl?

It’s a massive charm offensive: The entire cast – not just Pine, Grant and Page – are out to win us over with their smile and humor and dammit it works, largely because it looks like some of that was actually captured in their performances, not just in the marketing.

Highly targeted: Finally, the number of times the cast and crew took the movie to various genre conventions, the frequent collaborations with geek influencers and other similar tactics show that while the marketing may be working to bring in all audiences regardless of familiarity with the source material it also knows exactly which group’s word of mouth will make or break opening weekend. The projected $35-40 million is good but not great and shows breaking out of that audience subset was moderately successful, though the marketing as a whole is a lot of fun and works hard to not alienate those outside the Comic-Con crowd.

f9: the fast saga – marketing recap

How Universal is selling the latest in one of cinema’s biggest international franchises.

I may have mentioned this previously, but with the exception of Hobbs & Shaw I’ve never seen a single entry in the Fast & Furious franchise. That’s despite the core series reaching its ninth entry over 20 years with this week’s F9: The Fast Saga. Here’s the official synopsis of the movie, courtesy of IMDb:

Cipher (Charlize Theron) enlists the help of Jakob (John Cena), Dom’s (Vin Diesel) younger brother, to take revenge on Dom and his team.

OK, sure. If you, like me, are largely in the dark as to what is happening in the above sentence, you may not be the audience for this new movie, despite a campaign that has boiled the pitch down to “muscle bound men and women engage in increasingly over-the-top stunts with cars.”

The movie, like many others, was originally scheduled to be released in April of 2020 but has been pushed numerous times because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Not wanting to imperil the franchise’s massive international box-office, it has seemingly never even been considered for non-theatrical distribution. That international appeal is evident in how it’s already nearing $300 million in overseas ticket sales before it hits the domestic market, where it’s Fandango’s biggest pre-order title of the year so far.

It finally hits screens this weekend with a projected box-office of $60 million dollars thanks to a flashy campaign but not to the lackluster 62% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s alright because this is for the fans, not the critics.

The Posters

The teaser poster of Dom with his back turned as he leans against the hood of his car was released all the way back in January, 2020. It’s not much but it doesn’t need to be as it’s simply the announcement that a new movie in the series is coming out and yes, it’s about family.

A series of character posters came out at various points in the campaign that placed each character in front of what I’m assuming is their signature car, or at least one that seems to match the color aesthetic being used. The Photoshopping here is obvious, as the photos look like they’ve been cut out like Joker assembling his scrapbook and then glued to the smoke-filled background.

Dom is at the center of the group of characters featured on the theatrical poster, the rest arrayed around him while at the bottom there are a bunch of cars and a helicopter engaged in some form of racing or chase. I’m not sure the multi-colored plumes of smoke are meant to symbolize or what purpose they serve other than to add something to what would otherwise be a collection of browns and grays. An earlier version of this poster ditched the action and just featured the primary cast leaning against their cars with the same colorful smoke in the background.

Dom and Jakob are engaged in a no-holds-barred race on the IMAX poster, dirt and sparks flying everywhere as they trade paint.

One final poster came out just a few days ago, this one released at the end of a big online promotional day that included the cast answering fan questions. The poster itself was part of the 20th anniversary celebration aspect of the campaign and had Dom standing by himself alongside his car with a collection of memorable quotes from the previous films placed above him.

The Trailers

A teaser trailer was shared by Diesel a couple days before the release of the first trailer. When that trailer (52.5 million views on YouTube) came out at the end of January 2020 it showed that this movie would pick up on the same themes and ideas as the series’ previous entries. It focuses on family both real – Dominic talks about how everything he does is to keep his wife and son safe – and chosen, as he reunites with his colleagues and partners in crime and adventure. This time around they once again face off against Cypher, who has enlisted a criminal who turns out to be Dom’s brother. There are fast cars and over-the-top stunts, including what seems to be Dom catching a car while standing on top of a bus.

Demand for the trailer was so high it recorded over 262 million views across YouTube, Twitter and Facebook in the first 72 hours after it was released.

The final trailer (46.5 million views on YouTube) debuted over a year later, in April 2021. Debuting first on “Today” (thanks to some NBCU corporate synergy), the focus is once again on family, whether it’s the found kind or the one you’re born into. Other than that there are of course ridiculous car and other stunts on display, including some sort of scheme involving magnets and, at the very end, a hint that the franchise will finally go into space, just as fans have been clamoring for.

Online and Social

You can find trailers, a photo gallery, story synopsis and more marketing assets on the movie’s official website. It also has information on the entire saga to date including a timeline of events. Links to the movie’s social profiles are also on the page, but that list doesn’t include the Giphy page for an unknown reason.

An Instagram AR lens was available that assigned each user to a character from the movie.

Advertising, Press and Promotions

In advance of the first trailer’s debut during the Super Bowl, a concert was held in Miami featuring Cardi B., Ludacris and other artists, with the stars of the movie on hand to give fans their first full look at what they could expect. That concert was livestreamed so audiences everywhere could experience it as well. Universal announced the event in December, building anticipation over a month out from it happening.

As the promotional concert was happening, Jimmy Fallon called Diesel from “The Tonight Show” to hear how it was going and get important updates.

When the trailer revealed Han from Tokyo Drift was returning for real, it was only natural that Kang would be interviewed about how that is happening and what it means for him and fans.

The movie was among those with commercials airing during the Super Bowl, just a few days after the first trailer was released. That Big Game spot is short on dialogue – that’s not what the audience is interested in – and long on dramatic car chases and other thrilling sequences.

Promotional partners for the movie included:

  • Dodge, which released a commercial featuring footage from the movie and other shots of the company’s cars narrated by Diesel that positioned those cars as the ultimate muscle performance machines.
  • Cameo, which let fans enter to win a personalized message from one of the cast members.

Diesel talked about the movie and more when he stopped by “Kimmel” in March of 2020. A few months later Rodriguez was interviewed about the important new perspective brought on by a female writer for the movie. While he was promoting other projects, Cena spoke about his trepidation before finally signing on to join the series.

In one of the biggest announcements that came as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak in early 2020, Universal pushed the movie’s release an entire year, apparently wanting to put the maximum possible distance between that virus and the film hitting theaters. Especially important at the time was that while U.S. theaters were (at the time) still open, Chinese theaters had completely shut down, effectively cutting off a major segment of the audience.

The picture hadn’t improved enough by September for Universal to stick with that release date, pushing it out an additional three months.

In October of last year, Universal revealed there would only be two more F&F movies before the series shut down, with Lin attached to direct both of them.

Due to those delays, it was advertised again during the 2021 Super Bowl, the only movie from 2020’s lineup to make a second appearance. The new spot mixes the usual bits about the importance of family with the kind of outsized and ludicrous action the franchise is known for.

EW’s 2021 Movie Preview included more comments about the story (such as it is) and characters.

One more delay, this time from May to June, was announced in March.

Diesel narrates a spot, released in late April, that starts with him talking about the power of going to the theater before cutting to the same movie footage we’ve seen before. His voiceover positions the movie as the perfect time to “come together” in a communal viewing experience with all the involvement and engagement that entails.

That spot was parodied in a late-May episode of “Saturday Night Live,” with Beck Bennett’s Vin Diesel just kind of naming things that exist in a movie theater.

The “Total Car-Nage” video from early May mixed scenes from the finished film with a bit of behind-the-scenes footage showing how some of those scenes were shot. It’s not exactly a featurette, more of a hype reel.

Black was interviewed about coming back to the franchise and the fan-driven legacy of Tokyo Drift.

Universal shared a video of a massive publicity stunt where footage and images from the movie were projected onto the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

A “thank you” video was released with the cast expressing their gratitude to audiences in China, Egypt and elsewhere after it opened to an impressive $162 million in those markets. Unfortunately there was a bit of a kerfuffle when Cena, while being interviewed by a Taiwanese outlet, referred to Taiwan as a country, causing a backlash in China and resulting in him issuing an apology on the social media app Weibo. That backlash was at least in part to blame for the movie’s dramatic drop in its second week in China.

Rodriguez, Theron, Mirren and other women from the cast talk about how the story brings the female perspective to the action genre in a featurette released later that month that also teased the new song “Furiosa” by Anitta.

Diesel narrates a spot broadcast on ESPN that mixes movie footage with shots of NBA stars.

How the filmmakers pulled off a key sequence involving driving around and with the aid of massive magnets was the subject of a feature story.

Dom and Letty swing across a valley in their car in a clip released at the end of May.

To the surprise of many, news came in early June that the movie’s world premiere would happen at the Cannes Film Festival, albeit out of competition as a way to bring some serious star power and brand juice to the event.

Beginning in early June there were a series of featurettes released regularly. Those included:

  • A look at one of the key stunts Dom is involved in
  • A spotlight on costar Anna Sawai where she talks about preparing for the physical demands of the production
  • A focus on Cardi B, who has a cameo in the film
  • Another behind the scenes look, this time at a sequence shot at Peligro Mines
  • A look at the technical work done to flip a car in an overly dramatic manner
  • Similarly, here’s how they flipped a truck
  • And one more on the magnet stunt

Theron hosted an outdoor screening on the Universal Studios lot that raised money for the Africa Outreach Project, a cause that’s very personal to the actress.

Lin and others were interviewed again about finally taking the franchise into space and bringing Han back after the character was killed in Tokyo Drift.

Regal Cinemas shared video interviews with the cast as well as Diesel on his own. Cinemark Theaters gave control of its Instagram Stories to the cast to post and answer questions from the fans.

Diesel also appeared on “The Tonight Show” to talk about the movie while costar Jordana Brewster was interviewed about some of her favorite memories and moments from the franchise so far.

One final promotional reel looked at the 20 years of cast interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and more from all the previous movies, cementing how this is a long-lived franchise.

Overall

What else is there to say other than

It’s about family.

Fast And Furious F9 GIF by The Fast Saga - Find & Share on GIPHY

It’s about justice for Han.

Fast And Furious F9 GIF by The Fast Saga - Find & Share on GIPHY

It’s about magnets.

Fast And Furious Magnets GIF by The Fast Saga - Find & Share on GIPHY

But, as I alluded to earlier, there’s little in the campaign for someone unfamiliar with the previous movies to latch on to or be interested in. I get that by branding this “The Fast Saga” that unconverted audience is being encouraged to check out the earlier movies, but if they’re not willing to do so they will likely remain unconvinced this is the movie to see.